Nikon's budget touch-screen fashion cam lured us in like a Siren. Was it worth the consequences? Find out in our Nikon Coolpix S230 review.
Review summary of the Nikon Coolpix S230:
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 It's a rare occasion to find a few prodigious faults in a Nikon, but this is one of them, so grab onto your Fendi bags and strut in the other direction. The Nikon Coolpix S230 is a fashion cam, so we weren't expecting anything groundbreaking as far as image performance was concerned, but the lack of overall image quality was substantial, in bright and low light. We've seen better cell phone images for criminy's sake. The Coolpix S230 also skimps on shooting features and throws most of its loot into Scene modes and novelty modes like Draw, the B movie version of Microsoft Paint. We like the touch-screen LCD, but $230 is not worth putting up with the rest of the Coolpix S230's insufficiencies. Consumers will be drawn to the swanky color options and touch-screen LCD like moths to a flame, but we're here to snuff the roaring wick. The Nikon Coolpix S230 is not a winner in our books. Release: March 2009. Price: $230.
Pros: Great touch-screen LCD. Cool design.
Cons: Poor image quality in bright and low light. Short on features. Testy zoom toggle.
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Full Nikon Coolpix S230 Review:
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Design - Good
The 10-megapixel Nikon Coolpix S230 is the kind of ultra compact that incites minor shrieks of delight when placed in the hands of fashion-conscious females. It's cute, comes in purple and has a nice big touch-screen LCD. The Coolpix S230 also ships in Warm Silver, Gloss Red, Night Blue and Jet Black, so its fan base is not solely limited to supermodels and gossip girls. We liked the thick glossy coating on the Coolpix S230's brushed aluminum faηade, and the camera fit in our pockets with ease.
External controls are few and far between on the Coolpix S230, which will suit most beginners quite nicely. The shutter button zoom toggle was clunky though, and we found it difficult to zoom in and out to a fine degree. Since the crux of the Coolpix S230's existence lies within its ample touch screen interface, all we got were Mode and Playback buttons in back, nothing more. Then again, most shooters in the market for a budget touch screen compact will not seem to notice anything unless it's on an LCD.
Interface - Good
The Nikon Coolpix S230's heart and soul is its 3-inch touch-screen LCD, and we have to give it some credit here. The Coolpix S230's touch-screen was more responsive than any Sony Cyber-shot we've ever handled, namely the Sony Cyber-shot DSC-T77 and DSC-T700. Even Sony's new Cyber-shot DSC-T900 couldn't match the responsiveness of the Coolpix S230's touch-screen interface. Panasonic and Samsung are the only other manufacturers offering touch-screen functionality, but we had mixed emotions regarding the Panasonic Lumix DMC-FX500's hybrid design. The Samsung TL34HD offered the best touch-screen control thus far, but all aforementioned competitors surpass the Coolpix S230 in terms of price.
The 230,000-pixel resolution of the Nikon Coolpix S230's LCD was decent, but we've seen better performances from other models with equal resolutions. The navigational power was heightened when we employed the included stylus, which enabled us to fly through menu options with ease. The Coolpix S230's menu system was not a major departure from most interfaces we've encountered. A basic set of image controls such as flash and Macro are arranged vertically along the left side of the screen, pretty much everything you'd find on a standard 4-way directional pad. The Main Menu contains all image control, such as White Balance, ISO, Exposure and AF Area, but we could also choose between four different shooting modes by pressing the Mode button. After a brief test drive, we were able to get a grip on the Coolpix S230's interface, so ease of use will not be an issue for most shooters.
Features - Mediocre
Being a budget-friendly lower tier compact, the Nikon Coolpix S230 does not offer much in the image control department. There are four distinct shooting modes: Auto, Scene, Smile and Movie. Don't be fooled by Auto. It's more like a Program AE shooting mode, permitting full control of Exposure, White Balance and ISO. We spent most of our time in this faux Auto mode since it supplied us with the bulkiest tool belt. We also dabbled with some Scene modes here and there, but most of them just boosted the ISO and used a flash in low light. The Panorama Scene mode was pretty sad, relying on a feeble translucent quarter of the previously snapped image to line up the following shot. We were never able to capture a decent Panorama shot with the Coolpix S230 as a result. There was also an Auto Scene mode, which automatically assessed the shooting environment and applied a specific Scene mode that best suited the lighting and depth of field.
The most preposterous Scene mode was Draw, a handicapped version of Paint that allowed us to use the digital pen feature upon a white 640x480 background. We could write in Black, White, Blue, Red and Yellow. That's right, White pen against a White background. The Draw feature was more fun in Playback, allowing us to paint moustaches, devil horns and other cruel abnormalities upon people we weren't very fond of. We could also apply stamps and borders, and the Sony Cyber-shot DSC T700 and Cyber-shot DSC T77 also have this feature. The Nikon Coolpix S230's Playback mode also let us retouch, resize, stretch and play with color, but based on this camera's image quality, it was like putting a shiny red bow on a pile of rubble. Smile mode was nothing special. We had to wait for a big yellow box to form around our subject's mouth before the Coolpix S230 snapped two images back to back. This is a modest cluster of features for a camera in this price range, and we were treated to a much larger and impressive spectrum with Canon's entry-level PowerShot models.
Hardware - Mediocre
The Nikon Coolpix S230 is equipped with a 10-megapixel 1/2.3-inch CCD fitted with the company's new Expeed image processing. Contrary to the press release and Coolpix S230's web description, there was something not Kosher about this setup, leading to one of the most anticlimactic image performances we've come across in quite a while. But alas, we'll cross that bridge in a few moments.
The Nikon Coolpix S230's 3x optical zoom was jerky, and we were never able to attain an exact magnification. The 4-way VR Image Stabilization was not very impressive, and a good number of our images were slightly blurry. The Coolpix S230 runs on a rechargeable Lithium Ion battery and records JPEG images to SD/SDHC cards. The Coolpix S230 snapped an image in roughly 2.5 seconds from initial power up, which is an average performance.
Image Quality - Mediocre
We don't know what mind-altering substance the Nikon Coolpix S230 was on, but it produced one of the most unimpressive image performances we've seen to date. Aside from chronic fringing, we found most images to be plagued by wretched color splotches in certain areas and the surrounding borders to be out of focus. Colors in general failed to excite us and the Coolpix S230 offered minimal control in that regard, other than White Balance, which choked significantly at night, staining most of our low light shots yellow. Detail was minimal, edges exhibited a fair amount of stepping and the flash was highly inadequate.
To prove our point, we let a New York City model traipse about town with the Coolpix S230, who came back to us with a nearly identical report, only in very different words. "Most of the pictures were blurry and looked really bad. Plus, shooting at night sucked. I don't like this camera at all." That was the cherry on the sundae of doom for the Coolpix S230, for if a representative from its prime demographic had such a time, imagine what discerning photographers will think of this touch-screen letdown.
Scene Test Battery Park
Sharpness/Edge Test Financial District
Even from a scaled down perspective we can see the unappealing effects of a blurred border in the first image. At full resolution the effects are devastating, exhibiting a haze of ghosting and radioactive fringing amongst the innocent tourists and trees. The image is also noisy for crying out loud, and this is smack dab in the middle of the afternoon. If you look closely in the clouds, you can see obvious color borders and poor gradation. Detail is out to lunch and colors look flat. The second image is not much better, and we can clearly see the negative effects of the distorted and blurred borders along the frame. The edges that are actually in focus are wrought with stepping and detail is lost again throughout the entirety of the image.
Color Test A Bounty of Costumes
Color was one of the Nikon Coolpix S230's main weak spots, and this image is testament. We haven't seen this much bleeding since "Gladiator", and oversaturation is present throughout this poor image. Yikes.
Contrast/Detail Test Fence Creatures
One of the few decent attributes of the Coolpix S230's tool belt was its Fill In Flash, which enabled us to capture this image with a decent overall exposure. However, we still get the same helping of preposterous image abnormalities and chromatic aberrations as the previous images. Fringing is eating this image alive, and the borders look as though we're viewing this image through a foggy sheet of translucent Plexiglas attached to a paint shaker. Egad.
Macro Test Battery Park Flowers
The Nikon Coolpix S230 only excelled when it came to capturing close-up or Macro shots, and this image was the best we snagged throughout the entire shoot. However, poor color gradation rears its unsightly head at full resolution and we can see distinct color borders and splotches within the pedals of the flowers. So, even at the Nikon Coolpix S230's best, we get a mediocre image.
Night Test Little Italy
Low Light Test Chinatown
Forget about shooting at night unless you plan on using the flash on a subject in the foreground at the sacrifice of everything in the background. Every flash image we attempted to capture at night gave us a pitch-black background, due to its unimpressive range. So, we dialed up the Exposure and let the Nikon Coolpix S230 call the shots. As we can see in the first image, the White Balance has rendered everything yellow, which was a common theme at night with this camera. We get the same terrible border effect and even more noise this time. The sky is splotchy with poor color gradation, signs are blown out and the overall detail in this image is just sad. The second image is a slight improvement, believe it or not, but we can still detect traces of splotchy color and fringing along borders.
Price and availability
The Nikon Coolpix S230 will start selling for $230 () in March 2009.
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